


Strands

by Tarlan



Category: Eureka
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Collection: Fandom Stocking 2014, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-05 03:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3104324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlson promised Nathan he would know what the artifact was one day... but was he ready to discover the truth?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elyssblair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elyssblair/gifts).



> Created for Elyssblair for Fandom Stocking 2014

Carlson promised he would know what the artifact was one day, but had finished with a question, "Will you be ready?"

Ready for what?

It was just one more question among the many that had haunted him since the artifact was discovered deep beneath the ice in Antarctica. Everyone who had studied it was convinced it was linked to the Akashic Field - the Theory of Life, the Universe and Everything that was laughing revealed as the number '42' in the _Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy_ books. But it was no laughing matter.

When he stepped into the chamber in the Time Maintenance laboratory, he was convinced his fear of being eradicated from all time was just that, an irrational fear, because Carlson had promised him answers. He couldn't get those answers if he was dead. Still, he played the safe card and gave his blessing to Jack and Allison should he be mistaken. Though he would have denied it if asked outright before today, he had feelings for Jack that rivaled those he had for Allison, perhaps even surpassed.

As time began to move forward again he felt a tingling sensation throughout his body, as if every cell was breaking apart at the quantum level, turning to pure energy. He felt his mind expanding, connecting with the universe on a whole new level, opening new worlds of thought. Mathematical equations took form and sound, composing beautiful symphonies from stardust and he knew instinctively that this was it. This was the Akashic Field that interconnected all life, all sentience, all possible paths a single soul could take on its journey. He saw all versions of his past and present, each determined by a single decision, a left or right, yes or no.

He saw his future. Not one but many, choices spinning off from this single point in time. He traveled along the path he had planned to take with Allison; the marriage, a child, a year of contentment that gradually soured, harsh words, acrimony and regrets leading to divorce. When he returned to the point of origin, time had moved forward, seeing a growing emptiness between then and now, but he needed to see those other paths.

I have to know, he thought, and he moved towards the next path. He follow strands of academic and political glory, and all ended in loneliness, and each time he returned to the origin, time had moved on a fraction more until it measure years in real time.

Every path with Allison had ended in mutual destruction, whether benign resignation or bitterness. Every path alone, focusing on his work, had ended in bleakness. Only one more remained, shimmering amid the growing darkness, slim and silvered, so delicate that he thought it might break with just a soft breath upon it.

I have to know, he thought, touching it, letting it run through imaginary fingers. He saw a face, strong and handsome, with sky blue eyes clouded in physical pain and mental loss that wasn't defined only by death. This silver strand defining his decision to choose Jack vibrated like the taut string of a harp and he had a temptation to pluck it, to see how it splintered into the many paths of a possible future. 

Jack. His one denial. His greatest fear.

Will you be ready?

Carlson's words crashed through him and for the first time he truly understood the question. He could choose to slide along this strand and follow every outcome, a ghost haunting all the possibilities lying before him. Or he could choose to live in the moment and let his future unfold with each decision made, not knowing the path of his journey until he set foot upon it, and unaware of his destination until he reached the end.

Am I ready? he thought. Was he ready to let go of knowing everything and take a chance on finding the right path to a happy and fulfilling life? All he knew for certain was that he wouldn't find happiness along the other paths with Allison or alone.

Still undecided, he traveled back along the paths that defined his relationship with jack in the past, searching for hidden meanings in silent gestures or cryptic words. A look, a smile. And there it was, at the origin, in those pain-clouded blue eyes focused upon him as he reset time to accelerate the photon. Despair, loss, regret, sorrow... love.

Nathan could feel the years of darkness behind him, where his need to know had eradicated him from time. He could see the brightness ahead of him along that shimmering strand, see it thinning, glowing dimmer with each moment he hesitated, aware that if he waited much longer then he would lose that strand altogether.

I'm ready, he thought, and grasped at the strand to pull himself back into time.

\---

**PART 2 - because I couldn't leave it there!**

\---

"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is-."

"Yeah, enough with the Buffy quotes, Fargo."

"Star Trek."

"What?!"

"It was a Star Trek quote from where Spock went into Pon Farr and had to fight-."

"Fargo! Not helping."

Jack saw Fargo visibly deflate and felt a little remorse for his harsh words. Fargo was only trying to commiserate with him over Jack's second divorce. Allison had filed last week, citing irreconcilable differences, and he'd signed the papers and filed them an hour earlier, agreeing with her. They hadn't even made it to their first anniversary before the holes started appearing in their marriage, and despite the misery of failure hanging over him, he was also relieved. The problem was he had wanted her for so long that he thought it would be perfect once they were together but, damn it, even Fargo was beginning to make sense now. Except the one thing - person - he had truly wanted had been so unobtainable that Jack had gone out of his way to bury the desire in denial and animosity. Not that it mattered because Nathan Stark, bane of his existence, had died saving the whole goddamn universe.

Yeah, he thought sarcastically, he had once almost died from toxic waste exposure trying to save a truck driver, but Nathan had to do better than him even in death.

He sighed heavily. That was unfair. He had to stop blaming Nathan for everything that had gone wrong in his life since he first set foot in Eureka, including his failed marriage to Allison. Not that he regretted all of it as he had a beautiful baby boy that he now had to fight for in the courts for shared custody or visitation rights. It was him and Abby all over again, though he hoped Michael Nathan Carter didn't spend most of his teenage years angry with him like Zoe.

His phone trilled and Jack smacked his head on the counter top when he read the text from Henry. That was all he needed, more trouble up at Global. When he raised his head, Vincent gave him a commiserating smile and handed him a Vinspresso to go. At least someone was happy these days, though Jack wasn't sure if Trevor Grant deserved someone as nice as Vincent... and he really had to stop thinking about those two getting together as it made his head hurt.

"Thanks, Vince," he murmured as he pushed himself off his stool.

Ten minutes later he was parking in the bay near the main entrance reserved for local law enforcement. Global was a hive of activity with people standing in excited groups, whispering or gesticulating wildly. Many of them stopped to stare at him as he crossed the atrium and headed up to Henry's office, sending Jack's spidey-sense into overdrive. Something big had happened and Jack had a feeling that he was going to have a starring role in whatever shit storm was about to hit the town.

"Henry?"

"Jack!" Henry looked as if he had lost ten years. He was smiling widely, dark eyes sparkling in happiness.

"Henry?" Jack repeated.

"Jack," except that wasn't Henry's voice, and the familiarity of those low, sultry tones had his heart skipping a beat.

He turned slowly and found Nathan Stark standing just a few feet away, dressed immaculately in the suit he had planned to wear to his wedding to Allison. The world went dark.

"I think I finally broke him."

Jack blinked his eyes open and almost passed out again when he stared straight up into Nathan's blue-green eyes, but the familiar smirk brought all the anger, rage, frustration, futility, pain, pleasure, desire, want and need rushing through him in a jumble of emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. There really was only one thing he could do other than kill Nathan; he dragged Nathan down into the hottest, hardest kiss of his life.

By the time they parted he wondered if he looked as wrecked as Nathan, but before the shock of what he had just done hit him square in the jaw, Nathan smiled brightly.

"Well that was a lot easier than I expected," he stated enigmatically, before kissing Jack senseless.

END  
.


End file.
